“Having more volunteers definitely would increase our ability to keep up with the demand,” said Shellie Rice, Good Neighbor House’s pantry manager, outreach coordinator and human services director. “It would definitely (help us) keep up with the line.”
Many community groups and safety-net organizations across the region and state rely on volunteers, but survey data suggest that formal volunteering plummeted during the COVID pandemic and Ohio has seen one of the largest declines in the nation.
However, the number of Ohioans that formally volunteer with organizations is growing again.
“Despite the decline in volunteerism we saw during COVID-19, we can confidently say that the spirit of volunteerism is back,” said Erin Schneider, acting press secretary for AmeriCorps. “And while we aren’t all the way back to normal, we are closing the gap that the pandemic created and that is impressive.”
What’s going on
Good Neighbor House is a nonprofit that offers pantry, medical, dental, optometry and other health-focused services at a facility at 627 E. First St., which is located two blocks east of the Dayton Dragons baseball stadium in downtown Dayton.
The nonprofit’s pantry, one of the largest in the Dayton area, serves about 120 to 150 families every day, and that doesn’t count the many people it also helps who are experiencing homelessness.
Rice said the pantry was serving between 80 to 100 families when she first joined the organization this past spring.
She said the pantry on some days now serves as many as 160 families.
She said she’s glad that the pantry has never turned anyone away during her time because some of the stories she hears from clients are heartbreaking.
“I had an experience with a young lady here ... who told me that she had to make a decision too feed her children or pay her rent,” Rice said. “Things like that hit you really hard. .. The struggle is real.”
Rice said not long ago she was a single mother who relied on food assistance even though she worked two jobs. She simply did not earn enough money to make ends meet.
The numbers
Rice said many community members have it very tough right now because of inflation and the high cost of food, housing, utility and other essentials.
Good Neighbor House’s pantry served 354 new families in the last month, and it has served about 3,730 new families this year.
In total, the pantry has served more than 19,700 families in 2024.
Families receive about three to five days worth of groceries, and they can receive food items every 15 days. Many pantries limit food pickups to once a month.
Distributing all that food requires a lot of helping hands. And Good Neighbor House could use more of them.
Volunteers are vital
Good Neighbor House, like many local organizations that help underserved community members, relies heavily on volunteers.
Volunteers are vital to local hunger relief organizations, animal welfare agencies, libraries, parks and groups that provide safety-net services.
Good Neighbor House on average has about 10 to 20 volunteers working every day in the pantry.
They sort, organize and and distribute food items, plus answer phone calls, clean, assemble boxes and handle other tasks.
Rice said volunteers are invaluable and do important work.
“By all means, the people in this building are angels,” Rice said. “They see to it that people do not go without.”
Rice said adding more volunteers would help the pantry operate more efficiently. High demand for food means there is often a long line that goes down the street and around the corner.
Rice said she’d like to see current volunteers get more help and breaks. She doesn’t want them to feel overworked.
Some volunteers say they feel bad about taking a day off or leaving a volunteer shift early because they worry about Good Neighbor House not having the workers it needs.
Tracy Davis Sr., 67, of Dayton, said he’s volunteered at Good Neighbor House since last winter because he thinks it’s important to give back to the community.
He volunteers at the nonprofit a few hours a day, three or four days a week, before he heads to his actual job to a work full shift.
Davis said volunteering is very rewarding, especially when he puts a smile on someone’s face.
“You make a lot of good friends here,” he said. “It’s people helping people.”
Fewer volunteers
But formal volunteering dropped sharply during the pandemic.
About 30% of Ohioans 16 and older formally volunteered through some kind of organization between September 2022 and September 2023, says joint research by the U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps that was released last month.
The state’s volunteering rate is down about 7 percentage points compared to 2019, pre-pandemic. Ohio saw the sixth largest decline in formal volunteering in the nation during this time period.
However, formal volunteering in Ohio has rebounded from a historic low of 24% in 2021, say the estimates from the joint civic engagement survey.
Volunteers are a critical part of the community’s emergency hunger relief network, said Lee Lauren Truesdale, chief development officer with the Foodbank Inc.
Many of the Foodbank’s 119 nonprofit partner agencies are run entirely by volunteers, she said.
The Foodbank relies on volunteers pitching in more 21,000 hours of work each year to support its food relief efforts, she said.
She said volunteerism declined during COVID but has rebounded, and the Foodbank’s volunteer hours in fiscal year 2024 were down less than 4% compared to FY 2019.
“For us, volunteerism is very much back to normal levels, which we are grateful for,” Truesdale said. “Our Foodbank team cannot do this work alone. ... There is still a need at our warehouse for direct distribution volunteers, especially during the cold weather months.”
Volunteers are essential to the nation’s economic and social well-being, especially during times like this of increased loneliness and financial challenges, said Schneider, with AmeriCorps.
“They are the lifeblood of civic, nonprofit, tribal, and faith-based organizations across the country — helping not only their communities, but also helping themselves,” she said. “By donating the gift of time, together we can strengthen ties to our communities and one another while we address critical issues that divide us.”
The latest civic engagement survey shows that more than 2.8 million people in Ohio contributed more than 182 million hours of service to organizations worth an estimated $5.7 billion in work, Schneider said.
Schneider said the holiday season has arrived, and the “giving season” is a perfect time to get involved in volunteering because many organizations ramp up their efforts to meet increased needs during the holidays.
“Whether it’s serving meals at a shelter, organizing toy or coat drives, helping wrap gifts for children or supporting food banks, there’s no shortage of ways to give back,” she said.
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